Tuesday, March 3rd

Syrian conflict as the first climate change war "Global warming intensified the region’s worst-ever drought, pushing the country into civil war by destroying agriculture and forcing an exodus to cities already straining from poverty, an influx of refugees from war-torn Iraq next door and poor government."

The Independent

My fellow prisoners "Prison has a terrible effect on the majority of both prisoners and guards. It’s not yet clear, in fact, which group is affected more." (Mikhail Khodorkovsky)

Building the first slavery museum in America "For reasons almost everyone was at a loss to explain, John Cummings had spent the last 15 years and more than $8 million of his personal fortune on a museum that he had no obvious qualifications to assemble."

The New York Times

The novel as protestant art "So, here's a proposition: The novel was an art form—the art form—of the modern Protestant West, and as the main strength of established Protestant Christendom began to fail in Europe and the United States in recent decades, so did the cultural importance of the novel."

Books and Culture

When Asians attack "Five years later, Neighbours introduced its first Asian characters, a family of migrants from Hong Kong. Played by actors with noticeably different accents from one another, the Lims were promptly accused of barbecuing a neighbourhood dog." (Benjamin Law)

The Monthly (possible paywall)

Stella Prize shortlist countdown "Each weekday between now and the announcement of the 2015 Stella Prize shortlist on March 12, we’ll be turning the Stella spotlight on a different longlisted author and their book."